There are cotton clouds. The whitewash on the house across from my apartment window glows. The sun is so high and bright that the blue in the sky has run down into the corners and can't be found. There are hot pink flowers on waxy-leafed bushes. Monkey grass is pouring out through the fence.

It's hot, but not enough to make me sweat. Check that. Tiny, individual pin-pricks of sweat are gathering across my nose. The hair gathered loosely at the nape of my neck will probably be slightly damp soon.

I'm looking forward to the fruit ice balls I bought. They should help cool me down. Thank goodness I'm not moving. Sitting fat and silent is warm enough.

I feel like I'm living in a box. Its barriers extend up to the sky and as far as my eyes can see, but it's still a box. Sometimes a box is just a cigar. Someone lights one end and everybody inside shrivels in the intense heat and vanishes in a dirty, lazy stream of smoke.

There are times when I want my life to go away. I grate. My own nerves can't stand me. I hear the echo of my own stale laugh and I shudder. I catch my reflection in a pane of glass and I turn away in quick horror.

Heh. How sad. I haven't written anything creative in so long, I can't express the disgust and revulsion I feel for this place with any sort of elegance or eloquence. I'm living in a big, white room and it feels like someone's twisting my skin around my body in all the wrong directions. I used to be able to pierce through the page, through my readers' skin, and out the other side.

Maybe there is no other side anymore. There is nothing beyond the white. The white of the page, the white of the sky, the white of my skin. There's nothing on the other side of these white walls except myself, reflected again and again and again. An eternity stretching forward, riding on myself alone. I have friends, but I don't. I have lovers, but I don't. I want, but I hate. I'm not hungry, but I'm never full. I cry, but nothing comes out. Just white.

If I squeezed out tears, they'd paint my white face white again. I throw myself blindly against the white until I'm bloodied and bruised and white again. I can't even bleed. My blood's trapped beneath the coy white surface of my arm. It's like a drowning man, looking up at a white sky from under the surface of the water. It ripples and moves and doesn't change color. There is no color. There isn't even black.

Just me and the white.

The flame hurts the least when it burns white. But it doesn't matter because I'm not hurting. I'm just a little too warm. The pin pricks are drawn beads. The occasional one sneaks down my face and makes a white stain on the carpet, on my legs, on the desk. Slowly building another white wall. The dullest labyrinth, no shadows, no gray. Only ugly, ugly white.

Thank you for the compliment! I haven't written anything creative in so long, it seems that the writing spark is a little dim. ^_^

No, I don't hate Japan. I LOVE Japan. It's an awesome country. I hate where I live in Japan. It isn't the countryside, but it feels like it sometimes. People can be really backward and cruel, especially to foreigners. Also, it's where I work. I hate my job and there's a particular person I work with who makes it a living hell. It's like all he does all day is think of ways to make me scream. ;_; Of course, I think that's true in most jobs, but this guy is really obnoxious. I almost quit my job because of him.